Page:The frozen North; an account of Arctic exploration for use in schools (IA frozennorthaccou00hort).pdf/18

 on by caravan to the East, while returning caravans brought silks, dyewoods, spices, perfumes, precious stones, ivory, and pearls, to be shipped from Constantinople.

When the Turks, through whose country the merchants passed, began to realize how valuable the Eastern trade was, they sent bands of robbers to seize the caravans, making traffic by this route more difficult and more dangerous as time went on; so that European merchants tried to find some other way of reaching that part of the world.

John and Sebastian Cabot, two English navigators, set out in 1497 to sail westward, but finding their way blocked by the American continent, they returned. In 1498 Sebastian Cabot made a second voyage, with the object of finding a passage north of America which would lead to the Spice Islands and rich Cathay. In this way the long hunt for the northwest passage was begun.

The Cabots did not find the northwest passage; and though many voyages were made in search of it by other navigators during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, nobody met with success. The severe cold, added to the difficulties of a voyage through the ice of ages, prevented further investigation in that direction for some time.

Meanwhile, the Spanish and the Portuguese had been active in seeking for southern routes to the East, and had discovered two,—one around the Cape of Good Hope and one through the Strait of Magellan. They guarded these waterways jealously, and would not allow the ships of